To provide a wide selection of products that are readily available for delivery, many merchants (whether engaging in electronic or conventional “brick and mortar” commerce) may store those products in warehouses, fulfillment centers, or other inventory facilities. Keeping items in inventory may provide numerous benefits, such as, for example, accommodating variations in customer demand and/or a manufacturer or distributor's ability to supply those items. Typically, holding some quantities of a particular product “in stock” may enable a merchant to make such product available to customers in a more consistent fashion.
However, to maintain products in stock, a merchant incurs certain costs. Some of these costs may include, for example, real estate costs (e.g., lease costs, debt service, etc.), personnel costs, and facilities costs (e.g., utilities, maintenance, etc.). There may also be capital or economic costs related to the money that a merchant paid its vendor to obtain a stored product, which is then committed to inventory until payment for that product is received from a customer. Other types of costs may further include loss or damage due to accidents, or the like.
As an alternative to maintaining stock, a merchant may sometimes employ a “drop shipping” technique. Generally speaking, drop shipping involves transferring a customer's order to the manufacturer (or other third party, e.g., vendor, supplier, wholesaler, distributor, retailer, etc.), which then ships the ordered item directly to the customer. Drop shipping may, in some cases, allow the merchant to avoid the costs associated with stocking items in its own inventory.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.